


Searching for Woozles

by Cait_Sidhe



Series: Adventures with Luna [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Antarctica, Archaeology, Camping, Cats, Caves, Christmas Vacation, Corpses, Creepy, Disturbing Themes, Eldritch, Exploration, Fear, Gen, Horror, Lovecraftian, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Mountains, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Psychological Horror, Spooky, Vacation, ancient ruins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 19:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20680940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cait_Sidhe/pseuds/Cait_Sidhe
Summary: Luna insists Ginny, Harry, and Hermione accompany her and her father on a trip to Antarctica to search for Woozles, nonexistent creatures the Lovegoods believe are real. They don't find any Woozles, but what they do find is something more terrifying and unfathomable than they could ever have imagined...





	Searching for Woozles

**Author's Note:**

> This story can be read either independently or as a sequel to my piece "Searching for the Snorkack". It is not necessary to the understanding of this story to have read the other, rather it is merely a different journey and this one has references to it. If you haven't read it, don't worry about doing so before this one.

"You are all ready for our trip, correct?” came a sing-song voice.

Harry, Ron, and Ginny turned to the girl, surprised that Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw, had somehow gotten into the Gryffindor common room. They glanced at each other, then decided not to question it.

“What trip?” Ginny asked curiously. They had only just finished packing their bags, but to go to The Burrow for the holidays. Did Luna plan to go with them?

“Why, to Antarctica, of course!”

Harry blinked in confusion. That was quite unexpected, and very different from The Burrow. “Antarctica? When did we agree to that?”

“Last summer, of course.”

“When last summer?” Ginny wondered. “I don’t remember agreeing to that at all, nor would I want to; it’s awfully cold down there!”

“Oh, no, not in December,” Luna assured her. “Their seasons are the opposite, remember? It won’t be that much colder than winter around here, especially in the caves; underground is always warmer, significantly so further down. We probably won’t even need our cloaks.”

“Underground?” Ginny looked more curious than concerned now.

“Yes. We will be exploring the mountain caverns looking for woozles. I told you this.”

“Luna, you’re bonkers,” Ron said incredulously. “We never agreed to go to Antarctica with you!”

“Well, of course you didn’t; you weren’t there last summer, since you were helping with your brothers’ shop. But you won’t be this time, so you’ll be going with us.” It seemed Luna had decided this on her own, yet was certain Ron would comply.

“I still don’t remember agreeing to this,” Harry informed Luna.

“But you did. You said you were cold, and I told you we’d be going to Antarctica next so you should increase your cold tolerance.”

Harry thought back to the trip to Sweden they had taken the previous summer. “I suppose you did. But you said it was next summer, and we never fully confirmed we’d go.”

“Well, yes. It is in summer.”

“December is not summer!” Ron pointed out, milliseconds before Harry would have said the same.

Ginny chuckled a bit at that, realizing what Luna had meant.

“What are you laughing at?!”

“Well, Ron, technically it is summer in Antarctica…”

Ron turned to Luna. “Well, how do you expect us to realize that’s the summer you meant?”

Luna looked confused. “Why are you angry? I thought that was obvious. We’re going to Antarctica, so of course I meant the Antarctic summer.”

“It’s okay, Luna,” Harry told the girl. “Ron’s not angry; it was just a simple misunderstanding. We need to go to The Burrow for the holidays, but we’ll go with you somewhere next summer break, okay?”

Luna looked absolutely devastated at that news. “But Antarctica will be too cold then. We need to go now.” She seemed dead-set on going with them on this trip.

Ginny smiled at Luna. “Okay, fine. I can’t speak for the others, but I’ll go with you.”

“Ginny!” Ron proclaimed. “You can’t do that! It’s much too dangerous. Besides, what about Christmas?”

Ginny glared at Ron; with that, her decision had been cemented-- she was not fond of her brother’s overprotectiveness. “I’ll determine what’s ‘too dangerous’ for myself, thank you very much. And Mum can handle one Christmas without me.”

Before Ron could utter another protest, Lavender came over to snatch Ron away, leading him out of the common room-- no doubt to somewhere they could say some very wet goodbyes. 

A moment later, Hermione entered the common room, a look of disgust on her face. “They can’t even get two feet out the door without trying to vacuum each others’ faces off!” she proclaimed as she joined Harry, Ginny, and Luna, no doubt in reference to Ron and Lavender.

“What’s a vacuum?” Luna wondered.

“It’s a muggle thing, used to-- hey, wait a second. How did you get in here, Luna? You’re not in Gryffindor.”

“Oh, the portrait lady just let me in. You are ready for our trip, correct?”

“What trip?”

Harry and Ginny filled Hermione in on what they were, according to Luna, doing this Christmas break.

Hermione looked at Luna, baffled. “This is… really unexpected. I had already planned on going with my parents to Milan…”

“Oh, then they can come, too!” Luna said happily.

“No, they can’t. Wizards have magic to help them travel to dangerous places, but they’re muggles-- it would take a lot of planning a preparation for them to engage in extreme travel like that,” Hermione said. “I’m sorry, but I can't go.”

Luna looked crestfallen.

Ginny put her arm around the girl’s shoulders, smiling. “Don’t worry, Luna; I’m going with you.”

“Hold on,” Harry said, a worried look on his face. “You’re not going into any strange ruins this time, are you?” Harry did not want to even think about those ruins, especially considering what they had found there. He had nearly completely blocked that adventure out, and wanted to keep it that way. Ginny and Hermione had done the same.

“Not as far as I know,” Luna responded, non-committedly, and it wasn’t because she was sad: clearly she wasn’t concerned about potentially encountering horrific ruins, which worried Harry. He didn’t want two of his close friends getting into trouble.

“Maybe I will go with you, then,” Harry decided. He didn’t trust Luna’s father to keep the two girls safe, not after last time’s fiasco.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Hermione sighed. “Fine. I suppose I better go too; no telling what mess you three will get into if left alone.”

Luna’s face instantly brightened. “Oh good! That means it’ll be the same group as last time, in addition to Ron of course!”

Hermione’s face turned to ice. “Ron’s going?”

“No, he’s not,” Ginny asserted. 

Luna looked confused. “He isn’t?”

“No,” Ginny said firmly. “He’s been far too much of a tosser lately.”

Harry started to say something in Ron’s defense, then realized that there wasn’t really anything he could say; Ron had not been very kind to Hermione at all lately, and he and Ginny had been getting into arguments all year. Honestly, Harry had to admit, if he were in either of those girls’ positions, he wouldn’t want Ron around right now at all either; their ire with him was quite justified. But that meant Harry now had to choose between going with this group to Antarctica or with Ron to The Burrow… he’d actually prefer the former, as it was a way to just get away from everything currently happening in the wizarding world, and he’d actually rather liked their previous adventure barring its conclusion, but was it worth offending Ron, who would surely see it as Harry “choosing” Hermione over him?

“How long is the trip?” Harry asked. “A few days?” Maybe he could spend half the break with them and half with Ron.

“No, of course not,” Luna told him, surprised he’d suggest that. “We’ll need at least five days to get there before we even start to look for the woozles; we can’t fly straight there like we did to Sweden, after all. The thestrals will need breaks.”

“Five days to travel, each way? But Luna, we only have two weeks of break!”

“I know. Dumbledore knows we might be late returning, if we don’t find a woozle right away.”

“Dumbledore... approved this?” Harry had a hard time believing that; then again, Dumbledore could be quite as eccentric as Luna.

“Hold up,” Ginny interjected. “We are NOT using thestrals again, no way.”

“But we can’t apparate that far, and the floo is filled with stinging nargles.”

“There’s stinging nargles now?” Harry wondered, then cringed inwardly in preparation for one of Luna’s nearly incomprehensible explanations.

“Why yes, they--”

“Forget that,” Ginny again interrupted. “We can’t go. Not if we have to ride thestrals again, especially not for days.”

Luna looked extremely dejected. “Are you sure? I was so looking forward to this…”

“Why don’t we take an aeroplane?” Hermione interrupted. “None of you have passports, but that’s nothing a slight confundus can’t fix.”

“But we can’t do magic,” Harry pointed out. “We have the trace still, remember?”

Hermione shook her head. “No. I don’t. My birthday was a few months ago. Plus, don’t forget, Xenophilius will be with us too, and he’s an adult.”

Luna’s eyes lit up. “I’ve never been on an aeroplane before!”

And thus, it was decided: Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Luna’s father, Xenophilius, would again be travelling to search for a potentially nonexistent, or if not then probably extinct, creature, this time in Antarctica.

  
  
  


*******

  
  


Harry and Hermione looked around nervously. They of course were familiar with being at muggle places like the airport, but it was very clear that Ginny, Luna, and Luna’s father Xenophilius were not. Ginny was dressed enough like a muggle that her outfit didn’t attract attention, thanks to Harry and Hermione’s assistance, but she was shifting around so much, looking so uncomfortable in the unfamiliar clothing, that she would surely be suspected of smuggling something. The Lovegoods just stood out in general; although they technically were in muggle clothing, the 60s-style hippy tye-dye t-shirts and bell-bottoms seemed more out-of-place than wizard robes would have been.

“I don’t see a sign for Antarctica,” Luna said. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“We’re travelling first to South Africa,” Hermione reminded her.

“Why do we need to stop? Can’t it go all the way there?” Xenophilius wondered.

“No, I’ve told you this,” Hermione said patiently. “Very few people actually go to Antarctica like we’re planning to. Most take sightseeing cruises or do flyovers by plane as a tourist thing. Generally only scientists go far inland. So we’ll head to South Africa first, and go from there-- hopefully we’ll find some researchers on their way there who we can hitch a ride with.”

“And if we can’t find them?” Ginny asked. “What then?”

“We’ll figure something out. Maybe parachute out of a flyover plane.”

“Parachute?” Xenophilius asked. “What’s that?”

“She means we’ll jump out of the plane,” Harry told them.

“You’re not serious!” Ginny exclaimed, drawing the attention of some of the people around them. She lowered her voice. “We’ll die if we do that.”

“Of course we won’t,” Hermione said with a laugh. “What Harry failed to mention was that parachutes are basically… hmm, how to describe them… Well, you know how umbrellas sometimes can start to pull you up in heavy wind? It’s like a giant umbrella you’re strapped to. It catches the air, slowing your descent enough for you to land easily on your feet.”

Ginny still looked skeptical. “There’s no way people do that.”

“It’s true though. My parents and I went skydiving-- that’s what jumping out of a plane is called-- a couple summers ago. It was actually a lot of fun.”

“It still sounds terrifying!”

Harry looked at Ginny, amused. “It’s safer than flying on a broom,” he pointed out. “You’re strapped in and secure; if you fall off a broom, you’re dead.”

Ginny considered this for a moment. “Huh. I suppose that’s true.”

The loudspeaker called out their flight, and after much scrambling around and a lot of help from Hermione, the group eventually were seated in a very comfortable first-class section partitioned off just for them. 

“Wow. These planes are much nicer than expected,” Ginny marvelled. “My dad told me they consisted of tons of seats all crowded together, not compartments with recliners and tables.”

Harry glanced sideways at Hermione, who was sitting next to him. “Yes, it is quite nice,” he muttered quietly to her. “How the bloody hell did you manage these tickets? There’s no way your parents’ frequent flyer miles covered this.”

Hermione blushed. “Don’t worry about it,” she told him.

“The tiny seats are in the back,” Luna informed Ginny. “We must have gotten very lucky to have been given these seats instead.” Ginny and Xenophilius agreed, all three unaware that there was a very large difference in price between the private seats and coach.

The 11-hour flight was interesting, to say the least. The pureblood wizards were utterly fascinated by all the technology on the plane, from the large television down to the cup holders built into the fold-up table. The group settled on watching a film trilogy, which took the whole flight as they had to keep pausing it for Harry and Hermione to explain every little thing to the wizards; the two really regretted agreeing to watch Star Wars over something less complex.

  
  
  


*******

  
  


Harry yawned, stretching his arms above his head as he awoke to the sun shining in the window. He seemed to be the last one who had awoken; most of the others were already dressed in their travel clothes. They had arrived in South Africa late in the evening, so had grabbed a bite to eat at a fast-food place and then rented a double room at a hotel. With duplication and extension charms, there had been plenty of room for all five of them to have a comfy bed. 

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Ginny told Harry, amused.

“Your hair is messy,” Luna commented, as Harry dislodged himself from the blankets.

“It’s always messy,” Hermione muttered sleepily; she was also still in bed, and seemed to want to stay there.

“Yeah, what she said,” Harry concurred. 

“No, it’s worse than usual,” Luna said matter-of-factly. “Here, let me fix it.” She strolled over and moved just one strand of Harry’s hair. “There, all better.”

Harry wasn't sure if that had helped at all, but Luna seemed to think it had, so he thanked her anyway as Ginny giggled.

Their first stop that day was to a travel information center/ gift shop connected to the hotel. They had picked up outfits from the airport shop, meaning today Luna and her father were wearing much more era-appropriate clothing, although the former somehow had found a very ostentatious sequined crop top. Harry and Xenophilius wore cargo shorts while the girls wore jeans shorts. Hermione and Ginny, unlike Luna, had opted for inconspicuous blouses with flower patterns, in pastel blue and green respectively, while Harry had selected a simple peach button-up, and Xenophilius a black Metallica t-shirt. 

The shop attendant was fairly confused over their questions, not used to having visitors actually wanting to do more than just fly over or take a cruise to Antarctica. He suggested they travel to a nearby science center, who might know of any expeditions planned that they could go with.

The shopkeep had told them not to get hopeful, and he was correct. There was an expedition planned, but they would have to wait three weeks before it set off; the quintet did not have that much time. So, they moved onto Plan B: parachuting out of a tour plane.

Thankfully, Hermione had parachutes in her bigger-on-the-inside bag; it seemed she had anticipated this possibility. However, the tour planes were all booked for months, meaning they would have to hoodwink someone out of their tickets-- something which they had the morality to not do. At least, the Gryffindors didn’t; Luna and her father debated otherwise, but they were convinced it was wrong in the end.

The group wandered around town for a bit, feeling quite dejected. Would they not be able to get to Antarctica, after all? They just had to have chosen the one continent that had no wizards at all; it would have been so much easier otherwise! 

Suddenly,Hermione gasped in excitement. “That’s it!” she proclaimed, pointing at a shipping warehouse.

The wizards looked at it in confusion, but after a few moments Harry caught her drift. “You have got to be joking.”

“Not at all! They have to ship supplies to the scientists; I bet there’s one going out soon.”

“We can’t go in shipping crates!” Harry said, horrified. “That’s not safe at all!”

Hermione laughed. “No, no, I don’t mean in the crates. We’ll stowaway on the plane.”

“So we won’t need parachutes then?” Ginny asked. “Since it’s bringing supplies.”

Hermione shifted a bit. “Well… we still might. It depends on where it’s going, and if the plane stops-- sometimes they just airdrop it.” she saw the wizards’ confused faces. “That means they toss it out with a parachute attached.”

  
  


*******

  
  


Hermione had been correct; they still would need to parachute out. With some bribe money, an obliviate, and varying degrees of apprehension, the five found themselves plummeting towards the snow-covered tundra, the small cargo plane quickly diminishing as it soared away. At Hermione’s signal, they all pulled the strings of their parachutes, which changed them from feeling like missiles plunging towards the earth to balloons gently floating through the air. Thanks to some magic, they were able to control the direction of the chutes to a greater effect than without, as well as reduce the level of descent, as they angled towards the mountains in the distance; perhaps, if they were lucky, they might land upon one.

Unfortunately, even with magic, parachutes still descend at a steady rate. A sudden gust of downwards wind assisted with this, causing them to land on a bed of icy snow a few miles away from the base of the nearest mountain. The wind violently batted at them, making putting their parachutes away an immense struggle as ice blew into their faces.

The group quickly renewed their warming charms. Antarctica was outside the jurisdiction of the UK’s magical government, so the area didn’t have the same underage magic rules-- none, in fact. After all, Antarctica was so remote and uninhabitable that no magical government had claimed it. Unfortunately, the charms didn’t work as well here as they did during UK winters-- Luna had been very incorrect about it being not much worse than a UK winter, at least for this deep inland. So in addition to the charms they wore, in lieu of traditional robes, trousers and long-sleeved turtle-neck shirts charmed to resist water, heavy cloaks, gloves, hats, and snow boots.

Trekking through the dense antarctic snow proved more difficult than expected, especially with the wind’s violent onslaught decreasing visibility via all the snow it blew around, turning what would otherwise have been a relatively easy distance into a four-hour expedition.

“What time is it?” Ginny panted, as they reached the place they would set up camp, a spot where some tall rocks sheltered them from the wind, eagerly awaiting the warmth of the tent. Unlike muggle tents, wizard tents-- which were larger on the inside and typically furnished with couches, bunk beds, a bathroom, and a kitchenette-- were temperature controlled.

Harry looked at his watch. “Ten at night, according to this… I must have not set it to the right time zone. Hermione, is your set correctly?”

Hermione looked amused. “Yes, that is correct,” she confirmed.

Ginny now looked at Hermione, confused. “But it can’t be ten pm. The sun is still high in the sky.”

“That’s because there’s no night here during the summer,” Luna informed them.

“Exactly,” her father concurred. “Near the poles, summer means constant sunlight, and winter means constant darkness. That is why we had to go now, rather than waiting for your summer break.”

Hermione opened her deep-bottomed magical bag to retrieve the tent, only to scream and drop the bag in surprise as something furry leapt out at her.

“Crookshanks!” Hermione called once regaining her senses. She picked up the large ginger cat, dusting the snow off him. “You little stowaway,” she scolded, then sighed. “But I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now. Come on, let’s get you inside the tent, where it’s nice and warm. The antarctic is no place for a cat!”

The tent, which assembled itself at the wave of a wand, had some fairly large skylight windows, which made sleeping difficult at first, but that was solved with some simple charms to change the clear film into an opaque navy blue with sparkling stars to resemble the night sky.

Despite the warming charms on the tent, there was still a substantial chill when they awoke; as a result, even the excitable Lovegoods were tempted to stay curled in blankets for much longer than necessary the following morning, prompting a huge panicked rush when they eventually realized the time.

“It’s past 3!” Xenophilius cried out, rushing around the tent grabbing equipment. “I knew we shouldn’t have changed the skylight, we’re way behind schedule…”

“We won’t be able to find any woozles now,” Luna said sadly. “They only come out in the morning…”

“Hold up a second,” Hermione said, re-checking her watch. “It isn’t 3 p.m.; the sunlight is throwing us all off again. It’s 3 a.m.”

“A.m.?” Harry wondered, perplexed. “But that means we only got four or so hours of sleep.”

“Something must have woken us up,” Ginny concluded. “But what?”

The group quieted. What possibly could have created enough noise to have raised them in such a barren tundra? The only signs of life this far inland had been the occasional fungus or moss on the sparse rocks jutting out of the snow drifts. The wind howled slightly, but that alone wouldn’t cause them to wake. 

“Think there could have been a polar bear?” Harry asked with concern.

Luna giggled. “Those are at the north pole, silly.”

“The only things around here would be some tiny bugs and plants like moss and algaes, although penguins sometimes travel far inland to nest,” Hermione suggested. “Though maybe not this far…”

A sudden scraping could be heard along the outside wall of the tent, causing it to slightly shake. The quintet froze. That was definitely not a penguin. Judging from the sound, it was something big. Did some sort of yet undiscovered creature exist on the barely-travelled tundra? The sound stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Crookshanks let out a meow of worry, breaking the fearful silence that had settled over the group.

The scratching sound resumed as the group debated over what to do. Should they wait? Should they send someone to check? Should they all go together? After a bit, Xenophilius came up with the clever solution of charming the wall transparent to see outside, which would allow them to see the threat while remaining protected.

But there was nothing there.

The scraping sound increased in volume.

“Maybe a demiguise?” Ginny ventured. “They’re invisible.”

Hermione shook her head. “No, that wouldn’t survive out here.”

“It could be some sort of snow variant,” Harry suggested. “Very few people come out here, so it wouldn’t be very far-fetched that something undiscovered lives here.”

“Oooh, yes, that must be it!” Xenophilius’s eyes glowed with excitement, no longer fearful-- the prospect of discovering something unknown was too great, thwarting any fear of a large, invisible, violent creature. 

Luna, too, brimmed with excitement, the thought of danger fleeing from her mind. “Let’s capture it!”

“NO.” Hermione and Ginny said together; at the same time, Harry said “Okay!”

“Harry, how could you agree to that?” Ginny chided. “We could die!”

“Yeah, and we could die just as easily at Hogwarts,” Harry countered. “Remember Fluffy and Aragog? Can’t be worse than them. Besides, it’s not like we have anything better to do right now.”

“Let’s look for the woozles instead,” Hermione suggested, something she never thought she’d ever say.

“No, those don’t come out until later in the day,” Luna again informed them. 

“We’re catching this thing,” Xenophilius insisted. “After all, what’s a little danger in the face of a new discovery?”

While they were preparing to go outside, the sound died down.

“No! It’s going to escape!” Xenophilius yelled, hopping on one foot as he pulled on a boot.

A few minutes later, Xenophilius, Luna, and Harry were excited exiting the tent, with Ginny and Hermione cautiously trailing behind, sharing an exasperated look. They were of course used to danger, but unlike the other three, were not looking forwards to encountering it, especially when taking their prior adventure with Luna into account. Unlike many of their fellow housemates-- Gryffindors tend to be a bit more reckless than most, a result of bravery being a defining trait-- the two liked to think that they at least had a little bit of sense when it came to appropriately dealing with danger.

“Look! Tracks!” Harry exclaimed, running off in the direction of the bear-sized, twelve-toed, long-clawed footprints.

“Harry, wait!” Ginny called, to no avail, as the Lovegoods followed him. Ginny sighed. Now she not only had to watch after Luna, as she usually did, but Harry as well. At least Hermione was here to help attempt to keep the others somewhat under control.

The group followed the footprints for quite a few kilometers towards the mountains, which seemed to be further away than they’d originally thought; in fact, the further they walked towards them, the further away the mountains seemed to get.

“This is bizarre,” Hermione commented after a while, stopping fully. “There’s no way the mountains are this far.”

“Maybe it was some sort of illusion,” Luna suggested, pulling her scarf tighter against the strong Antarctic winds. “A mirage.”

“Snowfields don’t get mirages though, do they?” Harry questioned.

“Normally no,” Xenophilius explained. “However, there are certain rumors about illusions-- well, more like reflections-- appearing along ley lines…”

“Ley lines? Isn’t that a muggle myth?” Hermione commented skeptically.

“A myth? Now, why would you think that?”

“Well, it isn’t in any magic book I’ve read, nor have they been mentioned in any class.”

“Of course they haven’t,” Luna chimed in. “Do you really think the Ministry would want people knowing the world has thick veins of magical power running across it?”

“Well, why wouldn’t they?”

Xenophilius answered this time. “Well, my dear, if dark wizards got ahold of the information, don’t you think they’d try to exploit it? They are channels of extremely potent magic; if one could harness it, well, you can get the idea.”

“Then how do you know about them?”

“Pandora told me. She’s my late wife, and Luna’s mother,” he explained, before Hermione could ask who that was.

“I see… and that’s your only proof?”

“Well, er, yes, I suppose so. But she wouldn’t lie about something so important, if that’s what you’re implying!”

“No, no, certainly not,” Hermione quickly denied, not wanting to upset Xenophilius. She wondered how many more of his far-out theories had come from Pandora.

At that point, she, as well as the Lovegoods, realized that something else was wrong: Harry and Ginny were nowhere to be seen.

  
  


*******

  
  


“Hey, Harry, hold up a minute,” Ginny said.

“What is it?” Harry replied, stopping. Crookshanks wobbled a little, perched precariously on Harry’s shoulder-- the cat had followed them out, then insisted on being carried due to the snow.

“I think we lost the others.”   
  
“What?” Harry put the cat down, despite his protests, and looked around. It was true-- there was no sign of the others at all. “Well, they can’t be too far behind; we’ll just retrace our footprints…”

The two turned around, but after a hundred meters stopped short. Their footprints had ended, with absolutely no trace, not even a dent in the perfectly smooth snow and no wind to cover them.

“We’ll have to use red sparks then,” Ginny decided. “Vermillious!” The sparks flared. The two waited a few minutes, but there were no answering sparks-- could they really be that far away? Surely they hadn’t been walking that long. They tried again, yet to no avail.

“I have another idea,” Harry told Ginny. “Patroni. I’ve seen people make them speak; perhaps I can do that.”

“But that’s really advanced magic.”

“Yeah, but my patronus is really strong, so how hard can making it speak be? Expecto Patronum!” A silver stag emerged from Harry’s wand, shimmering in the pale moonlight. It circled Harry, waiting for instructions. “Go find Hermione and the Lovegoods, and lead them here. Tell them we’re okay, just lost, follow me,” Harry told it, and the patronus dashed off.

However, the patronus wasn’t gone for long; in fact, it didn’t even leave their sight, instead making a u-turn and returning to tell them in a very garbled version of Harry’s voice: “Weak oak tree, juice tossed, phial bee.”

“Well, that was my last idea,” Harry said, disappointed that the Patronus had failed him. “What do we do now?”

Ginny looked around. “Well, we’re pretty close to the mountains, maybe we can wait for them there-- after all, we’re all heading the same way.”

Harry looked towards the towering peaks. “Yeah, that makes sense. I think I even see a cave.”

“Sounds good; this night air seems especially chilly. Just make sure to watch out for woozles-- they live in caves, remember?”

“Huh? You’re not actually buying that, are you?”

Ginny laughed. “Of course not! Come on, you can’t tell when I’m joking?”

Harry blushed. “W-well, you never know, I mean, the Snorkack--”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Was an extinct creature we found on a cave drawing. What, do you think dinosaurs are alive, too?”

“Er, no. Sorry, you’re right. No way woozles are real, especially as they’re from Winnie-the-Pooh.”

“Winnie-the-what?”

“Ah, right, you wouldn’t know. It’s a muggle children’s book.”

Ginny laughed. “Of course it is. Leave it to Luna.”

“Well, again, you never know…”

Ginny chuckled and lightly punch Harry on the arm. “Come on, let’s get moving,” she said, and the two began to head towards the nearby cave.

  
  


*******

  
  


Meanwhile, Hermione, Luna, and Xenophilius had tried to follow the others’ tracks too, but they had vanished-- most likely due to the raging wind. Hermione tried her “point-me” spell, but it was useless; there was no way they could use sparks as a signal, as the sun was simply too harsh, so Xenophilius attempted to use a Patronus-- however, it simply returned to them, unable to find Ginny, Harry, and Crookshanks.

“How could they simply vanish?” Hermione wondered, baffled. “We had just been talking to them minutes prior; there’s no way they could have gone that far!”

“The Yeti must have gotten them,” Luna reasoned, a sad note in her voice.

“No, we would have seen it,” Hermione argued. “Here, I brought a portable sonograph just in case, it’ll use sound to see if anything’s out there…” Hermione froze and swore loudly.

“What’s wrong?” Xenophilius said excitedly. “Did you see the creature?”

Hermione scowled. “No! I left my bag in the tent… which no one packed up before running off!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure no one will break into it,” Luna’s father said calmly.

“That’s not the issue! We’re far away from it, have no idea what direction it was in, and now have no supplies if something happens!”

“But we have our wands,” Luna pointed out.

“Which, if you haven’t noticed, haven’t been working properly, at least for searching spells! What if they don’t work for other things?”

“They’re working for the warming charms.”

“Well, that’s true, I suppose.”

“Plus, we haven’t tried any finding spells on the tent,” Xenophilius pointed out. “Perhaps we’ll have more luck on that, hm? Hermione, try your compass spell.”

“Well, okay…” Hermione held out her palm, balancing her wand horizontally upon it. “Point me.”

The wand spun in place for a moment, then pointed off into the distance, to a point in the opposite direction from the mountains.

“See? It worked. Now, let’s go back to the tent, and see if your sound thing can’t find them, okay?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Hermione sighed, calming down. She needed to keep a clear head, free of panic, she reminded herself; after all, she was supposed to be the sane one here.

  
  


*******

  
  


“Wow; this cave actually is warm,” Ginny commented, pleasantly surprised.

“Yeah; I didn’t expect it to be quite so much,” Harry agreed, shrugging off his cloak. “Look, there’s even some moss growing on the rocks; maybe something really does live here.”

Ginny’s expression grew worried. “You know, maybe it does.”

“Let’s go further in and see.” 

Ginny grabbed Harry’s arm as he turned to walk further in. “Are you mad? We should, at the very least, wait until we’re back with the others!”

“But Crookshanks has already gone in…”

“Crookshanks will be fine.”

“Probably, but if he isn’t, Hermione’s going to be a basket case! She loves that cat. We all do.”

Ginny smiled. “Ron doesn’t.”

“Well, true,” Harry chuckled. “Somehow he still hasn’t gotten over the entire Scabbers incident; you’d think he’d be grateful, as Crookshanks was only trying to protect us from Pettigrew, but apparently he still sees Scabbers and Pettigrew as two separate entities.”

Ginny frowned as she began to follow Harry down into the cave, only half aware she was doing so. “Well, I don’t blame him; that was quite traumatic, even if he tries to pretend it wasn’t.”

Harry sighed. “True. All of us seem to have quite a few elephants like that, huh?”

Ginny cringed. “According to Hermione, if we were in the muggle world, we’d all be seeing some type of mind healer called ‘shrinks’.”

Harry laughed at that. “Imagine how that would go?” Harry ticked off his fingers as he listed things, “Hello, sir. My best mate’s pet rat turned into a person, I killed a professor who had a second face, I fought a murderous snake, a genocidal maniac has had it out for me since I was an infant, I spoke to afterimages of dead people, I was forced by a magic cup to fight a dragon, my godfather is a dog who--” Harry stopped short, his heart skipping a beat at the thought of Sirius. “Well, they would more than likely just toss me in an asylum and call it a day,” he quickly finished, adding in a small chuckle.

“An asylum?”

“Like St Mungos’ Janus-Thickey Ward, only much less nice. At least according to films and stuff. Lots of people who are forced to go end up there for life, so I hear.”

“I see. Er, let’s talk about something less depressing, okay?”

“Yeah, good idea,” Harry agreed, relieved. They could let the elephants stay elephants, for now. 

Those elephants, at least. “Er, Harry, hold up a second,” Ginny said nervously a while later, interrupting the comfortable silence they had drifted into after discussing Quidditch.

“Hm? What is it, Gin?”

Ginny moved her wand to illuminate the wall. The wandlight illuminated what was now no longer natural cave walls, rather what was a deliberately carved tunnel of smooth stone, undoubtedly created with some sort of drill, as Harry knew from his Uncle’s company creating such tools.

Yet it wasn’t the fact that there was an unnatural tunnel in a place no human had supposedly gone that was the most chilling aspect-- it was the graffiti that covered the walls. Graffiti eerily similar to the carvings they had seen on another trip with Luna not even half a year prior, only this time it was not ancient chiseled stone but what resembled a greasy, faded paint, undoubtedly more recently created. Whether the paint was one or a thousand years old they couldn’t tell, for the climate here was one that preserved things, but the two were certain that it was not pre-human like the ruins in Sweden. 

Those Swedish ruins were the proverbial elephant-- they had encountered them on a trip to Sweden with Luna the previous summer, and had sworn to never talk about such again. The horror they had encountered, the truths they’d come to learn, were simply too great for human minds to properly process. So they came to an unspoken agreement to put such out of their minds, never mentioning it to anyone-- if the trip were asked about, they’d simply say that, as expected, no sign of the Snorkack or anything else had been encountered, with the exception of a Swedish creature similar to a hinkypunk. It had been a nice, safe trip in fruitless search for an imaginary creature, with nothing of note occurring.

However, despite all their attempts at forgetting them, those ruins had to be brought up now.

“The writing is the same,” Harry whispered in wonder, not having to speak aloud which writing he was comparing it to.

“I never expected we’d find something like this here,” Ginny whispered back. Whispering felt safe; logically they knew there was no sign of anything, that whatever had built this was most likely long gone, but they couldn’t help it.

Harry’s response was morose. “I did. Something always happens, doesn’t it? Can’t catch a break.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Ginny scowled.

  
  


********

  
  


“Hmm… it’s not picking anything up but some rocks…” Hermione said, quite disappointed. She really had thought a sonograph would be effective. 

“Maybe they’re behind them,” Luna suggested.

“Actually, I suppose that’s possible-- there seems to be a fairly large grouping fairly close by. Maybe they’re using it as shelter from the wind… huh, that’s strange; the mountains are much closer than they were before, too.” 

“Maybe we were walking the wrong way due to that illusion,” Xenophilius suggested.

“Maybe… looks like there might be some caves there, too.”

“If they’re in the caves, then we can look for woozles together,” Luna said happily. “They should be awake now.”

Hermione resisted rolling her eyes. “Well, let’s head first to the rocks first, then to the caves; they must be at one of them,” she decided as she readjusted her sungoggles, and began to walk again towards the mountains, Luna and her father in tow, certain they were going the right way.

  
  


*******

  
  


Meanwhile, Harry and Ginny had decided to follow Crookshanks deeper into the cave… only to find quite the curiosity when they did find him. For the fluffy orange tabby was next to another cat, one that was mostly black save for a swish of white on her forehead. The two humans had no idea how to react. What did this mean? Was there a colony of cats that lived here, or was whoever built this tunnel alive and keeping her as a pet? Did humans live here, or was it the same strange creatures drawn on the walls of the Swedish ruins? No, it couldn’t be the latter-- if those things were still alive, they’d certainly know of them. After all, colonies of giant multi-legged triangular creatures would certainly be noticed! Then again, the Giants had been hidden from the muggles, so was it really so far-fetched that these creatures could be hidden from humanity?

“I think we should return to the cave entrance to wait for the others,” Ginny suggested quietly. “Maybe Luna or Hermione will know something about this; they’re both very good with cats. Luna even claims she can communicate with them.”

Harry laughed slightly, also quietly. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Well, she did have some special bond with the thestrals, so why not?”

“True,” Harry mused, as they headed back towards the cave entrance, both cats following.

  
  


*******

  
  


Hermione, Luna, and Xenophilius stared at the scene in wonder. What they had thought was a group of rocks on the radar had turned out to be the remains of some tents, half-buried sleds, and a small rusty aeroplane dated from the early days of air travel.

“I thought you said muggles didn’t travel here?” Xenophilius asked Hermione.

“They usually don’t. The last major expedition to this area was in the 1930s…” Hermione wandered over to examine the nearby tent. Miraculously, despite the winds the half-destroyed tent still sheltered quite a bit of the machinery inside it, things which she had only seen in books and museums.

Luna picked up a magnifying lens and peered through it. “This makes everything look weird;” she commented.

“Well, yes, it’s a magnifier… you haven’t seen one before?” It still amazed Hermione how many commonplace muggle items were a complete mystery to wizards.

“Oh yes, I have, but this one is different.”

“Different how?” Hermione strolled over to Luna and looked through the lens. “It seems normal to me.”

“You don’t see the strange light?”

“No?”

“Let me see it, dear,” Xenophilius said, looking through the lens as well. “Hmm. Seems normal to me, as well.”

“You don’t see it?” Luna asked, baffled. “It’s like a glowing afterimage of sorts, goes from here right out the door.”

“No. But if you say they’re there, dear, I believe you. Should we follow them?”

As they needed to explore the rest of the site anyway, Hermione agreed that they’d follow the mysterious light that only Luna could see. Luna took the lead, holding the magnifier up to her face; as a result, she nearly tripped a few times, relying on Hermione to grab her elbow at such times.

“Oh my,” she commented, lowering her arm holding the magnifier as she stared into a mostly-intact tent.

“What is it?” Hermione pushed through into the tent with Xenophilius before stopping short, and the two joined Luna in staring in horror at what they had found.

This tent appeared to have originally been set up for geological research, but the soil and rock samples, paperwork, and measuring tools, along with some weird star-shaped stones covered in dots, had been shewn from the large metal center table to be replaced with the remains of a man and a dog, cut up and dissected as though being studied. The cold had preserved the scene quite well, so it was impossible to tell how recent it was until Hermione dared to fish a chart from the rubble. It was dated 1930.

Hermione gasped. “I remember this!”

“You remember this?” Xenophilius repeated.

“Yes. Well, sort-of. There’s an old story I read, about the last expedition here, told by a survivor of it. Only he and one other survived, the latter which was at that point incomprehensibly mad. But… I thought it was fiction. Everyone did. The man was shamed into retirement for trying to pass off such a story as truth…”

“But if this was in the story, then he must have been telling the truth,” Luna reasoned.

Hermione shivered. “For the sake of our sanity, and lives, I really hope not.”

On that ominous note, the three decided to leave the morbid camp and explore the nearby caves, hoping that Ginny and Harry, unaware of any possible danger, were there waiting for them.

  
  


*******

  
  


“There’s a fork. I don’t remember a fork.”

“Ginny, relax-- it was this way,” Harry told the girl. 

“I am relaxed!” Ginny shouted, then covered her mouth, eyes wide. They needed to be quiet, not loud!

Harry waved it off. They’d left the mysterious tunnel long ago and now were headed down a more typical narrow cave path; he doubted there would be anything here. 

The two humans followed the path Harry had pointed out, unaware that the two cats had gone the other direction. They walked for quite a long while, until the cave began to again widen and the walls smoothed out, not only containing the greasy graffiti but also strange carved images and epitaphs.. Yet for some unknown reason, despite being well aware that it was the wrong direction, the two continued onwards, fascinated by such. Soon they emerged into a large ovoid chamber. Along one side, a sharp cliff led into a deep, dark abyss, and along the ceiling glowing lichen lit the room with an eerie, dim, neon-olive glow. The chamber was filled with strange monuments, of which the dimensions couldn’t be properly specified. A strange fetor filled the room, which felt both familiar yet foreign.

Soon, the two discovered the source of the rancid odor: a clearly dead, squid-like creature, viciously torn apart. It seemed to have once had a head that had been ripped off by terrible teeth, although it was missing, and the long branching tentacles-- five of them, emerging from the center of a bulbous body, which branched into five more and then again, leading to twenty-five in total-- seemed long enough to serve as feet. There seemed to be wing-like appendages, again in five and emerging from between the tentacles, yet all but one was viciously torn away. It was greatly rotted away, yet the chill had undoubtedly drastically increased the time it took to reach this point. A bit further away, two more of the creatures lay like such. Neither wanted to stay too long, in case the thing that had torn the things apart still remained, however unlikely. Though they did not go back, rather continued onwards, a morbid curiosity about the place taking hold, wondering if the cause had been the creature attacking their tent. They were wizards, after all; they could take it.

The exit on the other side of the room was a large archway sporting a detailed design-- upon looking back, the two noted that the entrance behind them had also been such, as well as a third exit to the side. Ginny marked the entrance they had used with a red x, and they continued down the path across from it, into an identical tunnel as they had come down.

Eventually they entered a perfectly square room, which had what appeared to be sarcophagi along the walls. In the center of the crypt lay a sled full of human muggle supplies, from the early twentieth century, many falling off. The two noted some was wrapped up, so slowly approached to investigate further. One of the wrapings was loose, slightly opened. Harry removed the cloth further.

“Ugh!” Ginny gagged, covering her mouth with her arm as a rancid odor assaulted her nostrils. She caught a glimpse of what was definitely a man and a dog, dead for who knows how long.

Harry quickly covered the corpses again. “Don’t worry; they’ve been dead for a very long time. It’s only so well preserved because of both the cold and being covered with some sort of embalming fluid,” He assured Ginny, knowing she wasn’t familiar with muggle techniques for dealing with the dead thus probably thought it was recent.

“Right… er, maybe we should turn back now?”

“TEKELI-LI!” Came a strange ghastly shriek from the way the two had come. 

Both humans froze in fright, staring at each other, silently agreeing to RUN in the opposite direction of it.

  
  


********

  
  


“Tekeli-li!” Came a shrill sound from far in the distance, making Luna, Xenophilius, and Hermione shiver, the latter more so than the others, remembering the same sound being mentioned in the potentially-true travel record she had read. The three continued down the passage despite this, noting the change in the walls. There was something uncanny about the smooth stone, just like Sweden’s ruins had been.

“Meow!” Crookshanks had joined the three, to their surprise, along with a mysterious black cat with a white swish on her forehead. 

“”I believe I see something quite large over there,” Xenophilius suddenly said, causing the group to stop. “Perhaps it’s the creature.”

“No, it doesn’t feel like such,” Luna asserted.

“What do you mean, doesn’t ‘feel’ like such?” Hermione asked skeptically.

“Well, it feels like…” Luna cocked her head and stood still for a few seconds. “Penguins.”

“Luna, dear, that would make for quite a large penguin!” her father commented. Despite his eccentricities, it seemed he actually did have at least a little more sense than Luna, Hermione noted.

“No, it’s a penguin and its penguin friends,” Luna instisted, running down the corridor towards the dark mass. The cats followed next, with Xenophilius and Hermione trailing after.

Indeed it was a group of penguins, albeit not the sort they were used to. These penguins were, in addition to being nearly six feet tall, entirely white. Even their eyes were white, no pupils in sight-- they were completely blind. Perhaps evolution had done such, as they seemed native to the dark caverns. There was probably subterranean water tunnels warm enough to host small marine life, as they had heard the rushing of water at the bottom of a cliff they had come across earlier, which the penguins fed on. The penguins, despite their looks, seemed to be quite peaceful, enough so that Luna was soon petting one, eliciting happy coos from the bird.

“Think these penguins made that sound?” Hermione pondered.

“Hmmm. No, I don’t think so,” Luna said in a dreamy way that indicated she was only halfway paying attention.

“Tekeli-li!” Came the shrill sound from off in the distance.

The penguins began to chirp and scramble around nervously, waddling quickly down a dark passage.

“Should we follow them?” Luna wondered. “It’s the opposite direction of the sound. I don’t like the sound.”

“No, I think I heard a splash; this probably leads to water,” Hermione reasoned. “Let’s keep going how we were, perpendicular to it.”

Not very long after, Hermione, Xenophilius, Luna, and the cats emerged from the caverns at the base of the mountains. They gasped at the wondrous sight ahead of them-- forgetting that they should find the other two, the group headed into the still, starry night, enthralled by the fantastical scene before them.

  
  
  


*******

  
  


“That… was… terrifying…” Ginny panted, catching her breath. The cool arctic air felt nice after such a run. She put her cloak back on anyway, as that feeling would surely soon return to iciness.

“Ginny, look at this,” Harry said in awe. He had abandoned putting his cloak back on, instead staring in wonder at something as he stood at the crest of the small outcropping they had emerged onto upon exiting the cave.

“Harry, please put your cloak on,” Ginny said exasperatedly as she joined him, before letting out a gasp of her own, failing to finish buttoning her own cloak.

For before them lay, despite its decay, the most brilliant city the two had ever seen. The structures it consisted of were largely made of a smooth dark stone colored with a gradient of pitch-black to dark sienna, including towering 150-foot skyscrapers somehow braced against the raging winds. Could they have used techniques similar to the modern human ones to maintain their height without snapping in two from natural happenings? No, the city was undoubtedly much, much older than even Hogwarts; humans hadn’t developed the capabilities for such high towers until very recently, and certainly wouldn’t even attempt using stone to build such! There weren’t only skyscrapers-- in between the megaliths lay buildings of varying heights and shapes, and although with dimensions not always distinguishable they estimated the majority were between ten and fifty feet. The buildings had an utter foreignness to them, almost alien, as though the curves and edges were not of this earth. They couldn’t even name some of the shapes of the constructs, but of what they could discern there were tall cylinders, truncated cones, and needle-like spires, often with shell-like balconies. All these were connected by what appeared to be tunnel bridges, long tubes of stone with occasional window-like outcroppings, from what seemed like random heights between ten and fifty feet up.

After a bit of staring at the marvellous city, Harry noticed some movement below. He nudged Ginny, gesturing towards it.

“I think that’s Luna and the others,” Ginny commented, squinting at the three larger figures and two smaller ones. “And the cats.”

“Hmm. You might be right,” Harry mused. “Let’s go meet them.”

Ginny frowned. “How will we get down though? It’s an awfully steep slope.”

“It’s okay, I have my broom.” Harry pulled his Firebolt from a small pouch. “Hermione charmed me a small extendable pouch for emergency supplies.”

“Your broom is an emergency thing?”

“Of course,” Harry laughed. “Get on,” he told the girl as he hopped onto the broom. Ginny hopped on behind him, grabbing Harry’s waist. This delighted Harry, although did make him feel a bit guilty, too-- he couldn’t fall for Ron’s sister, of all people!

The two zoomed down the mountainside, skidding to a stop upon reaching the others, blowing snow upon them.

“Harry!” Hermione scolded, but she was the only human who was disgruntled-- Xenophilius and Luna were quite delighted, and grabbed snowballs to return fire.

“Honestly,” Hermione sighed, though with a small smile. “You’re all five years old, I swear… oh, now you’ve done it!” she said, playfully scowling, as someone hit her in the face with a snowball. Hermione grabbed some snow as well, joining in.

“So, what do you reckon is this place?” Xenophilius wondered, once most the group had gathered their wits-- Luna and Ginny had somehow run into each other, and were now throwing snow on each other from the ground. “Some sort of pre-human thing again?”

Harry shook his head. “The paint on the walls was more recent. And then there was that thing we heard, too.”

“You saw paint?” Hermione said, surprised. 

“Yeah, at least I think that’s what it was. It had writing in a similar language to the ruins in Sweden.”

“That’s very disturbing,” Hermione said, worried. “Did you see anything else weird?”

“Yeah, some dead squid-like creatures-- old though, not recently dead, although the cold preserved them along with the smell-- and a sled with a dead, preserved man and dog. Embalmed, I think, but an older method.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “That’s exactly like the story! We need to get out of here…”

“But we should explore the city first, in case there are woozles,” Luna decided, re-joining the group, shaking snow out of her tangled hair with the help of Ginny. “Look, the decay has opened some walls of the buildings so we can explore. I think they’re all interconnected via those bridges and tunnels.”

“But what about the creature we heard?” Ginny’s voice sounded a bit panicked.

“Oh, it’s okay. It won’t come out in the cold.”

“She’s right,” Hermione agreed. “If the text I read is not mere fiction, which I now highly suspect it isn’t, the… things... began moving deep into the caves and water to escape the ice as the planet cooled. They tried to stay for a while, but then fully abandoned the city after an attack by another species that is hopefully dead. That’s what made many of these buildings into partial ruins, not the weather. If you look closely, you can see that much of the darker-colored stones are actually not naturally that color, rather were burned.” She tapped her wand on the building next to them, washing away a small segment of pitch-black soot to reveal the original deep golden color of the building.

“Well, the weather surely wouldn’t do it-- it’s calm... and dark…” Xenophilius said, something dawning on him. “It should be summer, with lots of sun.”

“It was like this before, when we couldn’t find you, before entering the caves,” Harry informed them.

“Okay, this is getting a little too spooky,” Ginny commented. “What type of weapon could even cause this much ash?”

“Something nuclear,” Harry and Hermione answered together, and then Hermione explained for the wizards. “They’re powerful bombs muggles created in the first half of the 20th century that can destroy an entire city, leaving nothing but ashes and the stronger buildings-- see how the bulk of the ash is mostly on one side? That shows it was just one or two explosions that hit it. On top of that, it leaves the city uninhabitable for a long time due to radiation left in everything.”

“My god,” Xenophilius said in wonder. “Muggles are more terrifying than I’d thought!”

“Do you think it’s still radioactive?” Harry wondered.

Hermione shook her head. “Probably not. Although we don’t know exactly what was used, so maybe we should leave anyway?” She suggested hopefully, though knew the others would just insist on exploring anyway, which they did.

Luna was much more excited to explore the place than anyone else, bursting into a rambling tirade about how they’d found a lost city akin to places like Atlantis, Lemuria, R’lyeh, Thule, and Ib. Hermione was awfully concerned about this, as three of those five places were, although supposedly fictitious, touted as quite dangerous places for humans-- there potentially could be things much worse than woozles there. Regardless, the group headed into the darkness of a strangely-dimensioned building via a collapsed wall, lighting their wands and tensely ready for anything-- except for Luna, who was skipping with joy. Had she not realized that even her father, who usually appeared just as jubilantly carefree, was taking caution?

The beauty of the inside of the building took their breath away, and the air was thick with an enthralling allure of wondrous horror. They couldn’t begin to predict the dimensions of it, and the walls shone with the glitter of a lustrous material as yet unknown to humans, possibly not even from the same planet. Said walls were covered in carvings, colored by mosaicing various stones, of which appeared to depict the history of the things that had lived here-- things identical to those squid-like creatures they had found dead in the cave. Various sculptures also stood tall in the vast space-- had this been some sort of museum?

“Let’s go to that mountain,” Luna said suddenly, pointing at an image of a towering black peak, taller than the ones they had gone through, which were already taller than Mount Everest. “I bet the woozles are there! It says it’s haunted.”

“You can read that?” Hermione asked, curious. “How?” The description etched near the image was in a dotted writing unlike anything she had seen.

“My mother taught me,” Luna explained absentmindedly. “A cursed mountain is the exact type of place woozles would be.”

“No,” Harry said with certainty. “We are not going to any cursed mountains. I think we should probably leave-- if these creatures do still live around here, I don’t want to encounter them. What if they think we killed the ones in the cave?”

“No, the shoggoths killed them,” Luna told the group. “See? It explains here how the squid people genetically engineered them to be their slaves, but they evolved far beyond expected, developing the intelligence to mimic their speech and eventually revolt. It seems they weren’t as smart as humans though.”

“But after millennium, they might be,” Harry pointed out.

“No, I don’t think so. They could only mimic, like parrots. The revolt was only successful because they reached a size much larger than expected, with violent tendencies. It was like adopting a puppy that grew into a grizzly bear. It’d take many more millennia for them to be as smart as humans.”

“Luna, dear, would you translate this here?” Xenophilius asked, gesturing to a large plaque on the wall. “From the mosaic, it seems there’s a sea far underneath this area, reached via the caves the white penguins followed! Imagine that? What a sight that would be to behold!”

Luna pondered over the description, then her eyes lit up. “It’s Atlantis!” she proclaimed. “Well, that’s not the name, but it’s similar. They moved to an underwater city copied after this one, deep in this ocean… see, the pictures over there depict it.”

“That’s amazing,” Hermione said in wonder.

“Meow!” Came the cry of the black cat that had followed them. The group turned to the animal-- only to watch it transform. The group was so shocked they failed to scream, but thankfully the squid-like creature-- identical to the dead ones they had encountered, except without the top ripped off, which was not a head rather a mass of more tentacles-- meant them no harm.

<Yes, we have magic, too,> it said, via silent telepathic images, for it possessed no mouth. It conveyed the sensation of smiling, a calm feeling showing it meant no harm, then got straight to the point. <Please, do not go to the sea, or to our city underwater. We have left you land-dwellers alone, and we would ask you the same favor.>

“But we mean no harm,” Xenophilius said meekly.

<I have seen that from my observations. However, I must still ask that you not do further exploring. You may return through the caves, however, be aware of the shoggoths that still dwell there. We were able to remove the ones within the city, as you can see the evidence of, but failed to destroy them all. They thankfully cannot breed, but still live to eternally haunt the caves we have imprisoned them in. We have no control over them, and I am sure they would love to feast on you, as they must be getting bored of feeding on the penguins we provide to them.>

“But if the shoggoths are in the caves, shouldn’t we go over the mountains instead?” Ginny suggested.

<No, that’s even more dangerous, because of the raging winds and tremendous altitude,> the creature said. <Your glowing animals-- patroni, I believe you call them-- will ward off the shoggoths as they ward off their cousins, dementors I believe you call them. Also, we have a magical barrier preventing them from leaving the caves, so be careful to not undo that with your own magic. Now, please go back to your home.>

“May we study this museum more?” Luna asked, not at all nervous at the presence of the strange creature, unlike the others.

<You may, but at your own risk. The residue from the bombs still lingers, and it is toxic still… now, I bid you farewell. I hope you will not speak of this to anyone, for if you do, it may result in tragedy not just for you but for your entire species… remember Pompeii?>

“That was a volcano,” Hermione said.

<Set off by us. They discovered us, and planned to invade. We got them first. Consider yourselves lucky that I’m the one who found you; not all of us would have let you live.>

Everyone’s faces paled. “Okay, we won’t say a word,” Harry assured the creature, and it conveyed a telepathic nod of trust before changing back into the cat and darting off.

The group began their trek back, heading into the caves behind a golden stream of creatures: Harry’s stag, Hermione’s otter, Ginny’s horse, and Luna’s jackalope. Xenophilius unfortunately had never progressed to a full patronus, only ever managing a non-corporeal haze.

“Hey, Luna, I thought your patronus was a hare?” Ginny asked with curiosity.

“Yeah, it definitely was a hare,” Harry recalled, “Or at least it was in the DA meetings,” 

“Oh, it wasn’t complete then,” Luna told them matter-of-factly. “As I practiced more, it slowly grew the antlers. Perhaps someday it’ll grow wings, too, and become a wolpertinger…”

“But… neither of those things actually exist…” Hermione said, puzzled. “I thought you couldn’t have fantasy creatures as a patronus.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. Of course they’re real!”

Ginny chuckled. “You have to remember who you’re talking to, Hermione. If anyone could have a mythical patronus, it would be Luna.”

“Well… I suppose you have a point,” Hermione reluctantly accepted. 

“Or she could be right about that,” Harry mused. “After all, the Snorkack was real, albeit long extinct.”

Hermione scoffed. “Carvings in caves are not proof, especially considering the other things that were written there with it.”

Harry shrugged. “If you say so… hey, where’s Luna and her dad?”

“Meow,” said Crookshanks, jogging off, then looking back. The three followed the orange cat, soon catching up to Luna and Xenophilius, who were headed down a sloping tunnel.

“Wait.” Hermione stopped. “This is not the way to the exit.”

“Of course not. We’re going to see the city,” Xenophilius explained.

“What! Did you not hear the Old One’s warning?”

“Old One?” Harry questioned

“That’s what the story I read called them… which I’m starting to think-- no, I’m positive-- wasn’t fictional after all…”

They had started walking again, Hermione now immersed in her thoughts thus not realizing they had continued descending into the depths of the caverns. Soon the walls grew damp, emphasizing the slight haze that had gathered in the now-widening cavern, and spots of lichen began appearing on the walls, letting off a faint glow. The group soon unlit their wands, for the swath of dim light made wandlight unnecessary. Soon they emerged upon an area so wide they couldn’t tell where the edges of the cavern were, with the exception of the towering cavern wall behind them. As their eyes adjusted to the now bright sun-like light of the lichen, they realized the ground was now sandy-- a beach complete with scraggy, rock-like trees, large boulders, seashells, and driftwood. Sprawling before them was what could only be called an Ocean, despite the cavernous ceiling above them.

There were guards a little ways off, three of them, but they luckily had not seen the group emerge from the cavern. The quintet and cat quickly ducked around a large bush constructed of thin branches dotted with dense clusters of dark rubbery leaves.

“What should we do now?” Ginny whispered, as they craftily parted the bushes’s branches and peeked out.

<You DIE,> a telepathic feeling told them. Someone screamed, possibly more than one, as they turned to find two of the six-foot-tall squid-like creatures, different ones than they’d previously spotted. The one who had told them that was pointing a spear at them.

<Wait.> One of the squid-creatures grabbed the other one’s spear. <We must interrogate them first, in case there are more hiding or arriving soon.>

The first guard seemed to scowl, although it was difficult to tell when its three mouths were almost immobile roundish holes circling the mass of tentacles atop its tube-like many-appendaged body. How could they even see where they were? Did they need to see? Nothing upon them even hinted at something that could be described as eyes.

“How are you going to--” Harry began, before screaming and doubling-over in pain, clutching his stomach. The pain was unbearable, almost like the cruciatus curse! No... it was that curse. The spear-tip was glowing… magic. They really did have magic, but instead of a wand it was channeled through the spheres, at least in the case of these guards.

“No!” Ginny called. “Stupefy!”

A red beam flew out of Ginny’s wand, striking the guard. It briefly staggered, dropping its weapon and ending the spell-- only for it to retaliate via grabbing Harry with its tentacles, which had been much longer than anticipated.

“I have this,” Xenophilius said, determined to protect the kids he was theoretically in charge of. He uttered a spell, which untangled Harry from the grip of the creature. “Hey, it worked!”

“You didn’t know if it would work?!” proclaimed Hermione, shocked the man would try a spell he didn’t know.

Xenophilius realized what the girl had thought. “Oh, I don’t mean I’ve never done it-- I just wasn’t sure if it would work on tentacles. You see, it’s normally used for untying rope.”

“Enough about the spell,” Harry yelled, as he and Ginny shot spells at the two guards. “The others have noticed, and are heading this way-- we need to escape, NOW!”

The others agreed, and they darted towards the cave mouth, the squid creatures not far behind, shooting off spells. The humans returned in kind, but the creatures seemed more durable than humans and mostly shook them off, with the exception of Luna’s incendio, but the fact that the creature’s head, or whatever the top of it was, was on fire didn’t seem to phase it nor hinder its approach.

As the group neared the square room of crypts, just as the humans were getting tired and the squid were significantly gaining, when the group hadn’t fathomed things could get worse, the danger escalated.

TEKELI-LI!

A dark shadow darted from a side tunnel and across to another. The squid-creatures stopped chasing the group, and became silent. The humans turned, expecting to see the squid-creatures frozen in fear or similar, yet that was not what had occurred. The squid hadn’t had time to fear, for the instant the shadow had crossed their paths, they were doomed. Their corpses were drenched in blood, tentacles torn away, large chunks removed… the humans stood there shocked for a moment, taking in the scene. Four guards, utterly, irrevocably dead in an instant. 

The humans regained their wits, barely remembering to get their patronii up as they ran, a new burst of energy born of fearful adrenaline driving them onwards. Harry sent his stag behind them at the sound of nearby movement. 

TEKELI-LI! Whatever was behind them had seemingly faltered at the pure energy of the patronus, as the nicer squid-thing had told them it would. A shoggoth, he had called it. A creature that until today had been thought of as a fictional imagining from the pen of an irrational, mentally-scarred researcher… perhaps he truly had been telling of his own experiences, knowing more about the horrors of the world than anyone had believed, thought mad because his truths were so horrifying that no one dared to believe them.

Harry risked a glance behind him; as he glimpsed the shadowy creature from the corner of his eye, he stumbled, and his patronus faltered. He couldn’t breathe. It had only been a glimpse, but it was enough to strike a fear in him deeper than he ever thought was possible. The thing was worse than a dementor by leagues, although even the tiny bit he glimpsed had been wholly indescribable.

“Harry, what are you doing!” Ginny called, sending her own patronus towards the creature as she started to turn.

“No! Don’t look at it!” Harry pleaded, grabbing Ginny’s head and forcing her to turn forwards.

“What the bloody hell, Harry!”

“Sorry, but I’m serious! I only caught a glimpse… if anyone actually looks it full-on, we’ll all be doomed, even if we do miraculously survive! It’s madness, pure madness!”

TEKELI-LI!

Ginny’s patronus fizzled out as well. Hermione’s had long prior. Only Luna’s Jackalope stayed strong, but it wasn’t enough to fully hold back the thing behind them. The shoggoth was significantly gaining.

Suddenly, a bright light shone, causing the shadowy creature to scuttle a bit away, out of sight as the group turned a corner at an intersection.

The squid creature from before, who had warned them to leave, stood in the middle of the intersection. His three cat patroni hovered near the crevice where the shoggoth had hidden.

<I told you to go!> The squid told them, angry. <Now, run-- I will take care of the shog-- >

The squid-creature’s message was cut off, along with half its body, as a second black shadow cut across the intersection.

TEKELI-LI!

The group scrambled to run, two shoggoths now in pursuit. Somehow, Harry managed to dredge up his patronus again-- his happy memory no longer being his friends, but simply imagining not being in this cave. This seemed to drive the creatures back a bit, but it wasn’t enough… Harry’s patronus started to blink out again, but he forced it to stay up. Luna’s jackalope followed one, Harry’s stag the other, and they were soon joined by Hermione’s otter and Ginny’s horse. Xenophilius tried to conjure his foggy patronus too, but he simply was not good enough at the spell to do much, like most wizards-- the four teenagers having full corporeal patroni was an extreme rarity. 

“Look, the exit is up ahead!” Hermione called, panting. “Hurry!” Everyone picked up their pace, running faster than they’d ever thought possible-- fear is a great motivator for such.

Suddenly, they emerged into bright, burning sunlight.

TEKELI-LI! TEKEli-li! Tekeli-li… The sound trickled off the further the group ran, slipping and sliding upon the sheet of ice they’d exited upon as the mountains of madness shrunk into the distance. It seemed the creatures truly couldn’t leave the cave system, just as their martyr squid-creature had told them.

The group reached their tent and began packing it up once their breaths and wits were recovered.

“Too bad we couldn’t find the new creature or the woozles,” Luna lamented. “The penguins were nice, but they wouldn’t have left such claw marks on the tent. We should find it.”

The others looked at each other worriedly.

“Luna, dear, perhaps we shouldn’t look for that today,” Xenophilius suggested.

“But--”

“Luna,” Ginny put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We already learned two creatures exist that no living human knew about. Isn’t that enough?”

“But I wanted to find the woozles! And don’t you want to know what the thing was?”

“Are you sure you shouldn’t be in Gryffindor?” Harry awed, staring at the fearless girl in wonder.

“Of course not. I’m not brave at all.”

Hermione just shook her head slowly, also awed at Luna’s complete disregard for safety-- or rather, unawareness of such-- despite the incident not even an hour before. Perhaps she got it from her mother, as her father seemed to have at least some sense in this situation.

Tekeli-li! A rumble sounded from the mountain, shaking the ground.

The group froze, even Luna, looking frightendly at each other. Was the barrier not strong enough?

RWARWER! This sound came from the direction of the camp that some of them had explored earlier.

Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Xenophilius high-tailed it out of there. Luna turned towards the thing, but Ginny grabbed her hand, making sure the girl wasn’t left behind to face whatever had made that sound.

Just as with the trip to Sweden, they unanimously agreed to never speak of this Antarctic adventure again, although Luna had needed some convincing.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are a Lovecraft fan, you may have noticed that this has direct references to his novel "At the Mountains of Madness"-- namely, they find the camp from the story, as well as the same dead squids, sled, and city, although I made significant changes to that last one. And of course, the shoggoths and penguins are the same. In fact, the story Hermione refers to is this very one! For those unfamiliar with the story, or Lovecraft in general, I encourage you to read it, as it can easily be found free online since it is old enough to be public domain.


End file.
